


From The Ashes

by Arthórien (AmberDread)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Blood and Gore, Dark, Death, F/M, HEA, I have no idea what this even is or where it came from, Mentions of Rape, Non Graphic, Not Rey, Revenge, Rey doesn't meet Ben till the end, Sort Of, Violent, is best served cold, no beta we die like men, not a shipping fic, the naming of names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26715823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberDread/pseuds/Arth%C3%B3rien
Summary: Scrap (who isn't old enough to be named yet) lives with her family in a peaceful hamlet surrounded by forest. Life is quiet and good.But one morning, that all changes.This is the story of how she survives.And how she meets Ben.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Scrap is Rey) 
> 
> Read the tags, this does contain a lot of violence, there are mentions of non graphic rape (Not Rey or anything to do with Ben/Kylo who she doesn't meet until the end, so this isn't really a shipping fic).
> 
> But there is sort of a happy ending

The soft crooning of hungry chickens woke Scrap up just before dawn, she yawned and rubbed her eyes, then rolled her blanket up and carefully crawled to the door of the hen house, scooting chickens aside where necessary.

As soon as the latch was raised and the door moved aside, the chickens rushed out into the cold grey light, clucking and ruffling their feathers against the chill.

Scrap crawled free and went across the small green into the woods to relieve herself- she hated to use the outhouse, it was dark and smelled bad even in cold weather.

After she was done she crept into her family’s house to get some hot tea to drink and cram a hunk of yesterday's bread into her mouth as she collected her egg basket.

The tea was scalding so she took the mug with her back into the hen house and started to collect the eggs her friends had left her.

When she was halfway through her task, two of the hamlet's dogs started to bark, at first she thought it was at each other and paid them no mind, but then she heard the sound of horses, many horses, coming in fast.

She froze, unsure what she should do, she could hear people were waking up now, calling to each other, then the riders were suddenly in the hamlet and she could hear men shouting, horses stamping, the clang of steel… screaming.

As she put her eye to a knothole in the wood of the hen house, some of her hens were clever enough to make their way back inside with her, their clucking now alarmed.

Scrap could see fifteen men, some were still ahorse, riding down any person who tried to flee into the woods, others were on foot, going into dwellings and dragging out their occupants by the hair, some were stabbed, others were bound and pushed into a corner guarded by a colossal man who seemed to be in charge.

Scrap didn’t know what to do. Surely if she went outside she would be killed or caught, but watching whilst hidden felt wrong. She had almost screwed herself to come out when she saw her mother being dragged into the corner. Her mother looked in the direction of the hen house, then flicked her hand, palm out then down. It was how they commanded their dogs to stay, her mother repeated the gesture again, then looked away.

Scrap hunched in on herself, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees and watched through the knot hole as life as she knew it, ended.

All the men and boys were dead now, and the older women including Scraps mother. The bandits had even killed all but one dog (the leggy hound had bolted into the trees almost as soon as the riders had arrived.)

The captives were younger women and children, some of the bandits were doing things with them that made them cry in fear and pain.

They set to eating and tending their horses, after some time the captives were forced to their feet and tied with rope into a chain between two dray horses, though the smallest of the children were placed atop the drays which had belonged to Scraps father.

Then five of the bandits led them away, whipping anyone who cried too loudly or dragged their feet.

Inside the hen house it was warm with the heat of chickens and hay, but inside Scrap was very, very cold.

And she got colder as she sat with her eye to the knothole. The bandits started to go in and out of the hamlet's dwellings, looting and destroying, they piled things to keep into a cart in the centre.

Scrap watched it all, she wasn’t really afraid anymore, she didn’t feel much of anything, other than wanting to make these men pay dearly for what they had done, for what they had taken from her.

As the day darkened towards night, the bandits finished piling things into the cart and covered it with a large blanket, then made their way into the largest house in the hamlet.

Scrap slowly uncurled herself from her position, all her muscles ached and she imagined this was what it felt like to be old.

The chickens who had been going to sleep, grumpily clucked at her movement but settled again quickly.

Scrap crawled out of the doorway and chivied the last of the chickens inside then closed the door as best she could from the outside.

Hunched low, she moved off into the trees to make water. It was painful after holding it in so long but it was such a relief she almost wept.

When she was done she crept around the back of one of the smaller houses and drank some water from the bucket out back, it tasted stale and metallic but she didn’t dare go to the well which was out in the open.

After listening for a few minutes, she decided that no one was in the house and she slithered through the door as quietly as she could.

Chaos reigned, there were things and bits of things everywhere. There was also blood and two bodies, Alice and John, parents of three of the stolen children.

Scrap didn’t look too closely at them and skirted around the blood till she found the pantry, but it was empty except for wrinkled apples and some day old pan bread, she wrapped these in an old cloth and continued hunting for anything edible or useful.

Her search find anything else that would be helpful to her right now, so she slipped out the back door again and repeated the process in all the other houses in the village save the big one where the bandits were eating and drinking. 

The last house she searched had been her own. Her father and brothers were here, cut down where they stood. Again she didn’t look too closely at them, but went straight to where her mother had kept her special herbs and medicants, hoping they were undiscovered.

Moving aside an old, worn rug revealed the secret trap door to a small underground compartment.

Inside was a wooden box, which was locked.

Scrap sat back on her heels dismayed and angry at herself for not remembering she needed the key.

The key was around her mother’s neck, and her mother’s body was currently lying in the centre of the hamlet.

But she refused to give up, she sat down to think and ate the stale bread and one of the apples. There was no way around it, she would have to go out and get the key. So she rubbed soot from the fire pit over her face, neck and hands, her leggings and tunic were already a dark green and dark brown.

Leaving her bundle and taking a thin boning knife she found in the cold fire pit she went out the back door and slunk through the deep shadows around the house.

The moon, though not full, still cast quite a bit of light- this meant she would be able to find her mother easily, but also meant she herself would be easy to see.

The noise coming from the bandits chosen house was loud now, it sounded like they had found the mead and cordial.

Once near the centre she darted from shadow to shadow, careful not to trip up on bodies and debris.

Scrap tried to breathe quietly, but when she found her mother’s body, that became harder. She crouched for some moments, looking into the blank eyes of her mother and slowly getting her breathing under control for these men had to pay for what they had done, and she could not carry out justice if she was being a stupid child . 

So she squashed down all her feelings, all her fears, into a tiny little ball of ice in her stomach, everything went away, and finally, Scrap felt nothing but cold.

She took the key from the cord around her mother’s neck and made her way back to the house that had been her home.

As soon as she was back inside she went straight to the box and used the key to open it. Inside were jars and bottles full of herbs, dried berries and viscous liquids. Her mother had been going to teach her about them when Scrap was named next year. All she knew was that some could be poisonous if too much was taken, some could make you sick up, some would make you sleep and some could make your bowels turn to water. But she had no idea which was which. That wasn’t too much of a problem though, the safe treatments (to break fever, cure coughs and reduce pain or swelling etc) were kept in another easy to reach box, so she would just have to use all the bad ones.

The bandits had been drinking, it was nighttime and they had no one to fear, so they must be sleeping or going that way, all she had to do was wait for them all to succumb. Then she would slip into the big house, dose whatever they had cooking on the fire and wait.

After hunting around, she found a jug which only had a broken lip and put it aside ready for her plan, then she went and had another drink then relieved herself before going back into the house and re-sooting her face.

Taking the jug, she carefully decanted all the liquids, herbs and dried berries into it, before tying a piece of cloth tightly over the top to lessen any spillage and made her way around the back of the dwellings to the big house. 

It was dark here, the trees hid the light of the moon but she ran her fingertips lightly over the wooden walls till she found a knothole to look through.

The fire was banked to a dim glow but she could make out the bodies of the sleeping bandits lying haphazardly across the floor, some had blankets over them, others just slept where they had sat to drink.

Scrap took her eye away and blinked in the darkness for a few moments, then carefully cracked open the door and slid in through the gap.

The wall of warmth surprised her, she hadn’t realised how truly cold she had been, it made her feel rather sleepy. 

She paused again to let the feeling pass, someone snorted and rolled over in their sleep, other men were snoring or muttering, the air smelled rancid.

Her path to the fire was awkward,a precarious back and forth between the sleeping men. She despised them so much it made her feel sick.

Then she was there, she crouched down so not to be silhouetted against the glow of the fire and took the cloth off the jug, then leaned over and gently poured the contents into the pot over the fire.

There was a long handled wooden spoon next to the pot so she gave the concoction a couple of stirs to make sure all of it mixed in properly.

Just as she was gently laying the spoon down and picking up the jug and cloth, one of the men snorted and sat up.

Scrap froze, still huddled by the fire, the man idly scratched his belly then heaved himself up to trample his way to the back door, tugging at his lacings as he did so.

He trod on and jostled his comrades as he made his uncaring way and others began to wake, complaining loudly and waking others.

Scrap crab-crawled her way into a dark recess, squeezing herself into a cupboard there and closing the door till it was just a crack.

Her heart hammered in her chest and throat and she felt light-headed and clammy.

She watched as other men went outside too, the first man had come back in and was feeding the fire and demanding someone find tea and a pot to make it in; for an awful moment Scrap thought that they were about to search the cupboards for it, but someone produced a wooden box from their saddlebags and grabbed a small pot that had been beside the fire already, someone else stirred the large pot and started ladling portions into bowls and passing them round.

Scrap felt sick with excitement and worry as she watched them consume their meal, she had no idea what would work first or how it would affect them, if it did at all. But it surely must, _it had to._

After they had eaten, a few went back to sleep, others went off to finish looting and some sat around mending gear, apparently all feeling fine.

The disappointment was crushing; angry, frustrated tears started to run down her still sooty face and she scrubbed them away with her filthy hands.

Then through the crack in the cupboard door, she heard a loud, unhappy groan of pain. She looked through the crack in time to see a small weasley looking man rush out of the back door and sounds of him voiding his bowels came from outside, he started screaming about blood then his noise stopped abruptly.

His comrades who had been chuckling at first now fell quiet. Some went out to see what had become of the man, but they were soon back, retching and horrified. 

And then they began to drop like flies, Scrap waited a couple of hours, then realised not all of them were dead but just debilitated... But that was okay, now it was time for the second part of her task.

Gripping the boning knife tightly, Scrap crawled out of her cupboard. She stretched her back, spine popping as she did, then went around the room methodically stabbing each man through the eye; she made sure the blade went in a long way before she moved on to the next. Some of the men were conscious but were helpless to stop her, to them she must seem like some kind of nightmare hallucination with her cold hazel eyes, red rimmed in a soot smeared face.

Each death was a victory, every look of fear or agony, lessened hers.

Once she had finished inside, Scrap went out the back to check on the weasley man, the stench was so awful she was sick, she almost didn’t bother stabbing him but it felt wrong not to.

It was afternoon by now, so she went first to let the chickens out, who were very disgruntled about being left inside so long, despite her apologies to them. 

Once her friends were happy, she went in search of the last few men.

They weren’t hard to find.

The last man she found had been the colossal one who had seemed to be their leader, he was alive, the poison perhaps working slower on him because of his size. 

Scrap approached with caution. 

He made the sign to ward off evil, as though she were a ghost or demon. “Stay back fiend” he rasped, “I wear a ward against you that would burn your bones to ash if you were to touch me.”

To her surprise, Scrap found herself smiling.

“You killed my brothers, my father and my mother, if I am a fiend, _you made me.”_

She raised the knife, and thrust it through his right eye, then did it again in his left eye for good measure.

She sat back on her knees with a sigh of relief. 

It was done.


	2. Chapter 2

Scrap did not rest for long - she had animals that must be desperate to be fed, watered and tended to, there was a lot of clearing up to be done and she needed to prepare the hamlets people for burial.

She found she wasn’t really hungry yet, but drank two cups of water before getting to work. The bandits had killed their cow and the goats had gotten free but the pig was still in his sty. At least the bandits horses had already been fed and watered. She left butchering the cow for later, though truthfully she had no idea how it should be done. So she put out food for the goats in case they came back and left their pen open, then put out grain for the chickens.

The horses would be a problem, she wouldn’t be able to feed all of them so she decided to let seven of them go and keep the biggest for heavy work, the smallest for riding and a pretty medium one that may be good for trade. The rest she untacked, with quite a lot of difficulty due to their respective heights, and using a piece of willow whilst standing well back, she whipped their hindquarters to send them on their way. It didn’t work very well, they trotted off as far as the good grass and stopped to graze. She left them to it and took the three horses she’d kept inside the barn, but she had to take them straight out again as they were unhappy with the dead cow, so she put them in the goat pen till she could work out what to do with the cow.

She worked for the rest of the day and well into the night before falling into an exhausted sleep, back inside the warmth and safety of the hen house.

Over the next week, she pushed herself hard, determination and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge her impossible situation, kept her going long after her small body should have collapsed. 

The first priority was always the animals, as she needed them for her survival, but once their daily tasks were tended to, she laboured first on moving the remains of her family and neighbours into the second largest house, laying them side by side in family groups, cleaning their bodies and gently closing their eyes. To her distress, she couldn’t find enough coins to place them on both eyes as an offering, so instead she laid a coin between their eyes, hoping the ferryman would accept them despite the reduction in payment.

The ground was too cold and hard to dig, so she shut up the house they rested in, sealing the doors and windows as much as she was able to with rags and precious wax.

The bandits got no such treatment, with the help of the larger, docile horse, she dragged them away from the dwellings, leaving them in a heap near the edge of the green. She had planned on letting any carrion-eater tear at them, but when she found a couple of dead claw-birds dropped dead beside the pile, she realised her mistake.

So, she set them on fire instead.

The scent of cooking spoiled meat was repugnant, and she had to go about with a cloth over her nose and mouth, shutting up the animals early so they wouldn’t be distressed before filling buckets and pots of water to stand near the pyre in case it became too hungry.

Once cold, she would scatter any remaining bones around the forest, condemning the bandits' souls to wander in torment till the end of days. 

It was the least they deserved. 

It was during a cold yet sunny afternoon, as she stood still with her face turned to the sky for the sun's fleeting blessing, that Scrap heard horses once more.

The terror was instant, freezing her to the spot for a handful of seconds before she was darting for the hen house, knives in her small fists as she scrambled in, trying to take quiet breaths as she settled in the straw, limbs shaking.

The hoof beats were unhurried, she could hear men, relaxed voices chatting easily with one another. Was it the bandits who had taken the captives from the hamlet away?

If it was, she’d kill them too. 

Somehow.

But the men riding in did not look like bandits, and they glanced about them as if they had never visited the hamlet before.

They were well groomed and smartly dressed, their horses had arched necks and glossy coats with tack that shone.

As they entered the hamlet, they called out, looking concerned when no answer came, dismounting and knocking on doors before pushing them open.

Fingers in fists, her blunt nails still managed to bite into her skin as Scrap watched them widen their search, now sounding alarmed.

Then one of them entered the charnel house and Scrap almost let out a scream of fury at the violation. The man was barely inside for a moment before stumbling out again, calling urgently for the others. 

Inside her a war raged between the cautious, afraid parts of her and the angry, vengeful parts, but she knew if she went out now, she would stand no chance at all. She had to be patient, she had managed before, and she could do it again.

So she watched through the knothole and settled herself to wait.

One thing she noticed as she studied them, was not all of them were men, one, a boy, older than her, almost a man, but there was something there that pulled her eyes to him, again and again.

At first she thought she must already know him somehow, but try as she might, she couldn’t place his face.

After a while, she realised he kept looking over to the green, where the hen-house was. It wasn’t long before his long legs started towards her and she grabbed her knives, tensing in anticipation. 

But he walked by, out of her sight.

Some foreign sensation shivered down her spine and raised the hairs on the back of her neck as the seconds slipped slowly by, before the sound of footsteps came close again, then stopped.

“I know you’re in there.”

The voice was not as deep as a full man’s, but not a boy’s pitch either.

“We won’t hurt you.”

Scrap stayed silent, limbs trembling.

“I swear it, on any god you care to name.”

She swallowed, her insides un-thawing the tiniest bit as her grip on her knives lessened.

There was the sound of movement and a second later a face appeared at the hen-house door. Up close, he was pale with dark hair and eyes, his expression was steady as he gazed at her.

“I’m Ben,” he told her, not moving further inside, not that he would have fit, but he didn’t try and grab her, “What’s your name?”

She chewed her lip, but decided to answer, “Sca-” she coughed, it had been a while since she had spoken properly, other than clucking or cooing at the animals, “Scrap.”

“Are you on your own here, Scrap?”

Something about him made her feel almost… safe? 

She nodded.

“Will you come out?”

He held out a huge hand, serious eyes searching her face.

A new strange feeling was blooming in her chest, something inside her was urging her to trust him, to go with him, that everything would be all right now that he was here...

“I’ll… I’ll come out,” Rey agreed but couldn’t bring herself to take his hand, her fear still making it hard to truly trust this stranger.

He frowned for a second before nodding and stepping away, face and hand gone from the entrance to the hen-house. 

Taking a shuddering breath in, Scrap scrambled out, knives still in her hands, blinking a little at the change in light despite the cloud that now covered the sun.

Ben stood a few paces away, he towered over her and she took a nervous step back as she looked at him. But he didn’t move, just stayed where he was, the barest smile curving his lips.

He gestured to what remained of the pyre, the blackened ground, ash and small bits of charred bone, “Did you kill them all, Scrap?”

She remained silent, suddenly afraid that he would think she was a monster, that he would go away and leave her on her own again. She felt her bottom lip begin to quiver as her eyes started to burn, she swallowed drily, part of her wished to run away right now, but she was rooted to the spot, incapable of movement.

Ben’s eyes softened and he took a step towards her, when she didn’t move, he closed the distance between them and knelt down so they were face to face.

“It’s all right.” 

His hands came to rest on her shoulders, they were so warm, she had forgotten how that felt; even as she had stood beside the pyre at its hottest, she had been cold, frozen to the marrow. It had felt safe then, feeling nothing except ice in her heart, but now…

“You’ve been so brave. You survived so much, all on your own.”

His smile was gentle, there wasn’t any disgust in his eyes and Scrap finally broke. Her legs buckled as fat tears flowed down her cheeks, shuddering with sobs that she did her best to keep silent.

“Hush now.”

Ben’s arms enveloped her, picking her up where she curled into a ball, abruptly, strangely calm.

“You can come home with us. You’re safe now.”

Nodding, she took a deep breath in, then buried her face in his shirt as her body relaxed.

As he walked towards the houses, sunlight broke through the clouds again, a warm glow bathing she and Ben.

He smiled, she could hear it in his voice as he named her, “I think we should call you Rey.”

Rey, it fit somehow, it felt right, _true._

In truth, Scrap had died along with her family, it was time to rise from the ashes and live again. 

Rey snuggled against him, feeling a little shy now, but mostly sleepy as she finally let go of all that had been riding upon her small shoulders.

It was all all right now.

She was Rey and he was her Ben, and something told her she would never be alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a happy ending? I was not expecting that... is that... Is that fluff? I think it is. Weird. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, if you got this far... I should probably apologise.


End file.
